musard
English edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Middle English musard, from Middle French musard, from muser (“to loiter, trifle”). See muse (intransitive verb).
Noun edit
musard (plural musards)
- (literary) A dreamer; an absent-minded person.
- 1796, An Appeal to impartial posterity, An Appeal to impartial posterity, page 217:
- How do the sciences go on in the midst of our political convulsions, and our financial distress? and the men of leaning, and the great talkers, and the collections, and the courses of lectures, and La Blancherie, and the museums, and the musards ( loungers?)
- 1881, Edward St. John-Brenon, The Tribune Reflects: And Other Poems, page 48:
- For while alluring fortune beckons me
Along, I'll follow it, ev'n to the verge
Of death—ay, hell, if but a musard hope
Should taste success, and my ambition dower
Me with a specious immortality.
- 1883, Charles D. Morley, Aglaia Unveiled: a Poetical Romaunt; and Miscellaneous Verses, page 6:
- Earth's sons arise, inhabit, and return, Like fleeting forms before a musard's eyes; Yet, as some Phœnix out a funeral urn, See! from their lives, new lives in youth arise.
- 1944, Ernest Hall Templin, The Social Approach to Literature - Volume 28, page 407:
- He belittled his fellow citizens, as was his habit, by remarking that Monsieur Musard was a bagatelle to amuse all the other musards of Paris, who had no important use for their time.
Anagrams edit
French edit
Etymology edit
From muser.
Pronunciation edit
Audio (file)
Noun edit
musard m (plural musards)
- a dreamer, absent-minded person, one who is frequently lost in thought
Adjective edit
musard (feminine musarde, masculine plural musards, feminine plural musardes)
- (dated) spending one's time musing, dreaming
- spacey, characterized by a predisposition to lose focus
Further reading edit
- “musard”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Middle English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Middle French musard; equivalent to musen + -ard.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
musard (plural musardes)
- A fool; an absent-minded person.
- c. 1360s (date written), Geffray Chaucer [i.e., Geoffrey Chaucer], “The Romaunt of the Rose”, in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London: […] Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], published 1542, →OCLC, folio clxv, recto, column 2, line 7562:
- There muſe muſarde al the daye / Thou wakeſt nyght and daye foꝛ thought
- Now think all day, fool, / you're awake thinking night and day […]
Descendants edit
- → English: musard
References edit
- “mū̆sard, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.